Writing my way around New England

Primary Journals

My laptop is on the verge of death. In an attempt to save what amounts to the last four years of my life, I am making the slow and painful transfer of my files over to my husband’s way better Mac. While doing this work, I came across some of the photos I took during the 2008 presidential primary race and knew I had to post them. At that time, I worked for Campaigns and Elections Magazine running one of its start-up news blogs. Mine was about New Hampshire politics. I did all the coverage, took my own photos, posted all the supporting material on the site, including calendars, links, other news. These shots I took with a tiny, kind of crappy point-and-shoot.

Taken in August 2007, this is one of the best shots I snagged during the entire campaign. I was sitting in the Executive Council chambers at the New Hampshire State House waiting for New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner to join then South Carolina GOP Chairman Katon Dawson to announce the South Carolina Republican Primary would be held on January 19. It was classic political theater. Dawson wanted to show respect for New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation status, but at the same time announced a date so early that New Hampshire would have to hold its primary before Jan. 12 (this timing being required by law of course).

Here, Dawson is at the podium, Gardner is on the right and Portsmouth state Rep. Jim Splaine, the guy who wrote before mentioned state primary law, is on the left. Seated on the right closest to the podium is New Hampshire Union Leader senior political reporter John DiStaso and to the right of him is the Union Leader chief State House reporter, Tom Fahey.

Not wanting to miss his announcement (or lose my seat) I was nervous about getting up to grab a shot. Instead, I put the camera in the center of the long, glass-topped conference table and clicked this shot on the first try.

This shot was taken in August 2007 inside the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign headquarters on Elm Street in Manchester, NH. Clinton ran a tight ship and her staff was often criticized for keeping the candidate at an arm’s length, but for some reason I always had great access to the campign and the candidate. I did a ride along during one of Clinton’s first campaign trips to New Hampshire, something my mother is proud of to this day. I always had my calls returned from the press office and they even let me take this shot for a story I did on campaign offices throughout the state.

The political press could not get enough of Dennis Kucinich and his tall, beautiful wife. Reporters would talk about her and their marriage constantly at his events, especially because she was with him everywhere he went. This picture is outside of the Red Arrow Diner in downtown Manchester, one of a number of local diner in the city politicians feel the HAVE to go to to seem real or something. I took this mid-August, when little else was happening in the state except a lot of hokey presidential candidate visits like this one.

Kucinich just looks so small here, hunched over to talk to this kid, whom I’m sure is thinking, who is the weird little man and this tall, fire-haired woman? It looks like mom here is in the midst of telling him.